More reactions to Miley's racist VMA performance

Jacqui Germain and Cat from BattyMamzelle both wrote excellent pieces on Miley's VMA performance, white feminism, and the commodification of black women's bodies. You should check both out right now. (Especially if you think the worst thing about Miley's performance was the subsequent slut-shaming.)

A few weeks have passed since the #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen hashtag first surfaced on Twitter. The subsequent conversation about the lack of representation and further marginalization of women of color by white women in the feminist movement (not at all a new conversation) seemed suddenly reenergized. Women of color have always talked about the subtle racism that happens within the feminist movement; just because you haven’t heard it, doesn’t mean it hasn’t been said—especially considering which narratives are allowed space and which ones aren’t. But with this hashtag, their voices suddenly had a stage. And some white women listened. Some critiqued their own privilege and pointed out the ways the feminist movement has historically dismissed women of color and their experiences. But now, it seems that even those well-meaning white feminists have yet to turn their articles into actual actions. -- Jacqui 

And if you think that I'm grasping at straws, just look at the way that the media treats Miley and juxtapose it against how it treats Rihanna. This comparison is made often, and it continues to be relevant. It can be argued that Miley has almost literally remade herself in Rihanna's image, and yet Rihanna continues to be attacked in the media for expressions of her lived culture, while Miley, who dresses up in black codifiers for profit, skates by. Miley is very literally trying on something that Rihanna has been doing for the better part of three years, and yet it only becomes acceptable when presented on a white body. playing into the long tradition of white artists stealing and/or appropriating from black artists and reaping the benefits. -- Cate 

We Are All Stars

It's tempting to think that your audience is essentially... you. Or, I mean, about the same age as you, therefore, no need to adjust your cultural references for relevancy. ('Cause you know somebody out there also bought that Reef CD, right?) Sometime during the half-decade or so, I officially became an "old," meaning there are scads of other people writing about music and pop culture, and many of them are young enough to be, well, my much younger siblings.

Particularly with music, I sense a big generational divide. Not necessarily the bands or artists being blogged, but the way the topic of what's "good," or even what's "cool" is approached. This comment on GenerationXpert  (note: the original post veers dangerously close to slut-shaming, and some of the other comments are downright homophobic), I think, sums up the difference between X and Y when it comes to music:

In music, for example, I thought X'ers's formative experiences covered a wide spectrum, from the hair metal days (which I seem to recall you being a fan of, and which certainly used sex to sell) to the more "authentic" grunge revolution, which didn't. In the Eighties, pop icons could use sex and be "outrageous" (Madonna, Prince), or not use it at all (R.E.M, Springsteen).

I think you could take that further and say during the 80s and 90s, the chasm between commercial music and indie was wider, and if you were someone who preferred the latter, you'd rather have root work done than listen to radio music. Even more importantly, there was no great equalizer like YouTube. Rebecca Black wouldn't have existed in 1987, or if she did, she wouldn't have been that season's Tiffany or Debbie Gibson (that would be Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift, respectively), she could have been playing in a punk band or penning a zine. She wouldn't have been famous, or "internet famous," because her kind of fame didn't really exist.

I don't think this is truly a bad thing. If it weren't for this internet thing, I wouldn't be blogging, or probably writing at all. I'm just as much a part of the problem, though I'm not sure I consider it a problem. But I do find it a little disheartening that everyone seems to want fame, even a small part of it.